Just wanted to get these thoughts down on doing a landscape painting. To see some of my favorite landscape paintings you can go to the earlier post "Landscape Painting Favorites." For this project I'd like for you to do a landscape painting of a scene along the Thames River.
This process has three main parts: 1. Collecting information, 2. Testing compositions and mediums, and 3. Solving the mystery.
I'd say I have an eclectic approach because I use various ways to complete this kind of project. I'll be talking about landscape painting, but this approach can be used for portrait of still life as well. Keep in mind there is no right or wrong way to create a work of art. As you create more you will find a way that works best for you.
In some ways creating a work of art is like solving a problem or a riddle, like breaking the code. Matisse, Pissarro, and Cezanne went about their work using some of these strategies, so you could say they are my role models.
First you need to find a place you desire to paint. It's important that you have a connection with the place, or have a history with this place. Maybe you want to be closer to the place, or maybe it wants to be closer to you. I'm thinking that a scene along the Thames might work for you.
Once you find the place you want to paint, you need to start collecting information. This can happen through one visit or through many visits.
There are many ways to collect information-- by sketching and drawing, through photography, through visual memory, through using your other senses; and through observing and borrowing from other paintings by other artists, and through literature and music, too. You could say that you're collecting your feelings about the place/scene you want to make a painting of -- both tangible and intangible feelings.
When making your sketches, try positioning yourself in different ways to obtain views of interest. Look not only for the overall view but also look for the selective deatil view. Look at the shapes, lines, and colors that make up the scene. Also think about how the sensory perceptions you have relate to your other senses--sound, smell, and touch. Use all of your senses to collect information, not just your eyes.
Have a good pencil at a minimum and a medium size sketch book with decent paper quality. You may also want to carry other drawing supplies including water colors. More on that later.
Here are a few examples of sketches:
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| Cezanne |
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| Corot |
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| Corot |
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| Pissarro |
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| Pissarro |
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| Monet |
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| A sketch I did in Scotland |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Boudin (sketch with water color) |
Train your eyes to see and remember the forms and colors. You can draw one branch, one tree, or a more complete view. Do quick sketches to capture your first impression. Remember the movement of your drawing hand and keep your eyes fixed on the light that reveals the images. Let the light of the view pass into your hand through your fingers. Now close your eyes and fix the natural image in your mind and in your imagination.
You can also take photographs. They can help you remember. You can pan the camera using overlapping frames so you can place the photos in panoramic positions later. Or use the camera to take a detail view of an object you want to study more. Here are a couple of photos I took with you at the Holy Trinity Church in Cookham.
And some photos of the Shenandoah Valley:
The point is to experience the location visually, mentally, and emotionally, Do not be too worried about compositional closure at this point. If composition ideas fall in place OK, but composition can come later.
When you finish you should have a notebook of sketches and maybe some photos too. Ideally you will visit the scene you want to paint more than once, perhaps many times and make more than one painting. Cezanne did that. But if you only get one visit collect as much information as you can and keep it safe, not only in sketches and photos, but also in your memory and in your heart and mind.
Artist Quotes:
- Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
Pablo Picasso
- Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.
Pablo Picasso
- I have a horror of people who speak about the beautiful. What is the beautiful? One must speak of problems in painting!
Pablo Picasso
- I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
Vincent Van Gogh
- Painting is damned difficult - you always think you've got it, but you haven't.
Paul Cezanne
- Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one's sensations.
Paul Cezanne
- An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
Henri Matisse
- A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.
Henri Matisse
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